Harry Kane is staggeringly under-appreciated.. now is the time to leave the crumbling circus of Tottenham

1 year ago 112

HARRY KANE turns 30 on Friday, with smoke signals from the Bahamas suggesting that Spurs’ billionaire owner Joe Lewis will finally gift him a long-awaited transfer.

If Kane doesn’t agree a new £400,000-per-week contract with Spurs, he will be sold to one of Europe’s leading clubs — probably Bayern Munich.

And the narrative is that, having been granted his freedom, Kane will enter his golden years finally adding major trophies to his extraordinary goalscoring records.

As if anyone would hold Kane in a higher regard if he helps Bayern to the Bundesliga title they have won for the past 11 years.

While it is clear and understandable that Kane craves medals and silverware, nothing could surpass his feats over the past four seasons at a crumbling circus of a football club.

Kane may be the record goalscorer for club and country, yet the under-appreciation of the England captain remains staggering.

Last season, Kane became the first man to score 30 goals in a Premier League campaign for a truly bad team.

Kane was overshadowed by Erling Haaland netting 36 league goals for Treble-winning Manchester City but his individual achievement was surely greater than the Norwegian’s.

Nobody in three decades has reached that landmark in a team which finished as low as eighth, or at a club which was openly imploding in a custard pie-slinging civil war under Antonio Conte.

And in 2020-21 — the season which culminated in Spurs finishing seventh after the sacking of Jose Mourinho just days before a League Cup final appearance — Kane’s feats were phenomenal.

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With 23 goals and 14 assists, he achieved the double of the Premier League’s Golden Boot and Playmaker of the Year award in a bang-average team.

Back in 2017, Pep Guardiola apologised for calling Spurs ‘the Harry Kane team’ but the City boss was merely ahead of his time.

No English football club in modern times has been so reliant on a single player as Spurs have with Kane since Mauricio Pochettino’s departure as manager in 2019.

Nothing Kane might achieve at Bayern, Manchester United or Paris Saint-Germain could make us marvel any more.

Throughout most of this summer it has appeared chairman Daniel Levy would refuse Kane a move.

But Lewis has now decreed that Kane should now leave for the right fee, around £100million, rather than depart on a free transfer when his current deal expires next year.

This is sensible and merciful.

Nobody, least of all Kane, wanted a repeat of the 2021 debacle when City made a one-off £100m bid, then left the England striker high and dry after he’d stated his desire to go in an interview with Gary Neville during a televised round of golf.

There was talk that bizarre episode might even be surpassed this summer when Kane took part in a YouTube interview, answering questions while eating the ‘Spicy Chicken Wings of Death’.

Would Kane reiterate his desire to quit with his mouth on fire on the internet?

That would have represented peak Tottenham but, thankfully, this was an absurdity too far and the chicken-wing interview passed off without a major news line.

Because if any player deserves to leave any club with dignity and appreciation then it is Kane.

Across London, talismanic players are abandoning ship — Mr West Ham, Declan Rice; Mr Crystal Palace, Wilf Zaha; and Mr Fulham, Aleksandar Mitrovic, who is heading out of Craven Cottage for Saudi Arabia under a filthy black cloud.

Mr Tottenham is surely off now and it may even turn out to be a well-disguised blessing for new manager Ange Postecoglou.

The Australian certainly understands intense pressure from his spell at Celtic.

But he may not fully comprehend the madhouse nature of his new club.

He requires a clean slate and patience — the kind Mikel Arteta was afforded at Arsenal.

And there can only be a proper long-term rebuild once the club’s extreme over-reliance on Kane is ended.

Kane has carried his club and nobody will begrudge him a few easy medals in Munich.

He may not end up as a one-club man but, for the past few years, Spurs have been the ultimate one-man club.

Jimmy in a jam

AS England’s Ashes hopes disappeared in the Manchester rain, what now for Jimmy Anderson?

The most prolific seam bowler in Test history has taken just four wickets in three matches this series — and England’s decision to select him over the talented Josh Tongue did not pay dividends at Old Trafford.

Anderson turns 41 during the final Test at The Oval and he is starting to look innocuous.

Do England risk being accused of sentimentality by selecting him again this week?

Because Anderson, not a sentimental type, would hate the idea of being chosen on anything other than merit.

It’s open season

IT’S a nightmare scenario for golf writers when a little-known American wins The Open.

But at least new champion Brian Harman, an avid hunter, livened things up with tales of shooting pigs and skinning deer.

The last time such a nondescript Yank took the Claret Jug was in 2004 when Todd Hamilton won.

Asked what his tiny hometown in Oquawka, Illinois, was previously best known for, he replied that a three-tonne circus elephant called Norma Jean was killed by lightning there and is buried beneath the town square.

At Hoylake, it was another of those ‘dead animal years’.

That’s canny

CONGRATULATIONS to Newcastle’s skilled transfer negotiators on securing a £30million fee from Saudi club Al-Ahli for Allan Saint-Maximin — almost twice the price they paid Nice for the winger in 2019.

And if you want to carp about Newcastle and Al-Ahli both being owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund then scold yourself for being a cynical pedant.

Meanwhile, it feels like Harry Maguire — now stripped of the Manchester United captaincy — is the only fading footballer not to have been offered a filthy-money Saudi move.

Why is this? Could it be that the power brokers in the dry Middle Eastern state have heard that ‘he drinks the vodka, he drinks the Jager?’

PREtty vacant

CONGRATULATIONS to Manchester City on lifting the “victory dish” after their triumph in an eight-goal thriller in the J League World Challenge match against Manchester City-owned Yokohama F Marinos in Tokyo.

But while City added this rather dishy dish to last season’s Treble, they still cannot get their hands on the Premier League Asia Trophy, after that memorable penalty shootout defeat by Wolves on its most recent staging in 2019.

Congratulations also to Manchester United — already holders of the Bangkok Century Cup — on winning a penalty shootout against Arsenal, despite having already beaten Mikel Arteta’s side 2-0 in a friendly match.

Now we can focus on who is going to win the Stateside Premier League Summer Series between Chelsea, Aston Villa, Newcastle, Fulham, Brighton and Brentford.

When pre-season is this gripping, who needs the actual season?

BOXER Anthony Joshua says Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder have been ‘doing my head in for years’.

But for fight fans, isn’t the problem precisely the opposite — that Fury and Wilder have not got in the ring with AJ and made any attempt to actually ‘do his head in’?

YOU’LL have heard a lot from Major League Soccer, who are on a PR offensive after Lionel Messi opted for semi-retirement in Miami.

But in truth, the Saudi Pro League’s arrival means the US competition is no longer even the most lucrative soft option for ageing stars seeking a final pay day.

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